V: It Ain't Easy
by alternatives
Summary: Tyler leaves Chicago for new assignments, winning friends and influencing people wherever he goes.


FF_

1. Topeka

"And you would be who?" snarled the girl holding the rifle.

"Assignees from the WLF," Chris answered.

"Really?" She didn't sound convinced.

"Look, I bleed just as red as you do. You want proof?"

"What's his problem?" The girl gestured toward Tyler with her gun barrel.

"He's not staying so you don't care what his problem is or whether he has a problem at all," Chris answered.

"He knows where we are," the girl replied. "He's not going to tell anybody else." The barrel now pointed directly at Tyler.

Chris laughed a little. "You had better point that elsewhere or it's going to become a pretzel," he said affably. She hesitated a second too long and wound up on her butt in the dirt with the rifle in her face.

"Damn, you're good," she said, a certain delight in her eyes.

Her fearlessness charmed Chris but he knew that the man at his back wasn't impressed. "If you're finished teaching kindergarten, let's wrap this up," Tyler said.

"Come on." Chris gave the girl a hand up and she wiped the back of her jeans. There was a new rip in them somewhere about where her underwear should have been. Apparently they had no such niceties any more in Topeka. Chris averted his eyes.

Tyler got out of the truck. "Where's your boss?"

The girl looked cautious. She hadn't stopped them and she hadn't gotten their vitals and she still wasn't sure they were human. "Look, one drop, OK?"

The men exchanged a glance that was basically a sigh. Chris dug a slit in one forefinger with the nail of the thumb on the same hand. "Good enough for you?"

"And him?"

Tyler felt a certain respect for the private soldier who wouldn't betray her duties, so he sacrificed a bit for her. His left little fingernail hadn't been the same since he got it stuck in the Chicago WLF residence's revolving door, and he ripped it off. The girl's eyes got big and she gulped. Then she said, "Follow me."

At a camouflage-fabric tent they heard voices. "So what's your real problem, Judy?" a woman asked.

"You're a hired gun," another woman said, apparently this "Judy." "When they come after us, you won't be here."

"How are they going to know to come here?" the first voice asked.

"Who's closer?"

"Houston. Shit, even Little Rock could do it." That was a guy.

"Or Tulsa. Or lots of other units," another guy backed the first guy up.

"I'll do it alone if I have to," the first woman said. "If I can't trust my backup, I'd prefer it that way. It's easier for one person to fall off their radar than half a dozen. So I ask again, Judy. What's your real problem?" After a brief silence, she said, "This discussion has gone on far too long. I have no problem with participatory planning, but Judy, you're not participating. You're saying everything has to stop until people agree with you and if they don't, they aren't listening. Well, we have listened and you've got nothing. What is it, Cammie?"

That must be the private on picket duty. She had slipped inside the tent and gotten the tough woman's attention. Cammie mumbled something.

"Bring them in."

Cammie looked out the flap. "Come on."

"I'll leave you here, Chris." Tyler rubbed his jaw. "Chris."

"Yeah?"

"Be careful with Lolita there."

"You think she's trouble?"

"I didn't say watch out for her. I said be careful with her. There's a difference." Tyler gave a grin nobody but Chris ever seemed to see and slammed the truck door after climbing in.

2. Alabaster

Nowadays, driving 800 miles only works if you can stay above the freeze line. The southbound leg of the trip made that difficult in May; at one camp, Tyler found the bleeding heart had already bloomed. Running the Appalachian ridge would help.

Then he had to get off I-65 which, for the times, was in pretty good shape, and make do with state roads, which were always iffy in the mountains. Coal mining had stopped so who had money for upkeep? Counting himself lucky not to run into any more survivalists, Tyler made the Alabama part of the run in one trip. Then he found an empty roundhouse at the railroad and sacked out in the truck. An ironman can't afford to turn up with red eyes. Screws up the whole image.

Double back on Rt. 3 and west on 66. Left on Industrial Park Drive. Why an industrial park? You can't defend all that exposed blacktop. Some lessons to teach here. He drove off the asphalt and pulled up under some trees shading a picnic table. The passenger side shielded him from the parking lot. Now he had to worry about the newbies in the woods. If they were in the woods. Christ. He used the hood of his truck to nudge the picnic table over and backed up to it. Second wall of his redoubt. Slipped out on the woodsy side. Listened for people in the brush.

When the chipmunks and squirrels came back out of hiding, he gave up. He bagged a couple of squirrels with his Camillus C4 Demolitions knife attached to a lasso that let him draw it back with the carcass. Took out the gall bladders and stowed them in an old baggie to surprise a lizard, or anybody else he didn't like, at an appropriate moment. Tyler got two slices of squirrel into him and then heard the brush moving. Deer? He got his knife ready again, minus the lasso. Voices whispered behind the trees. Brush thrashed and he could see them.

The woman had a slash across her shin with a little red dripping from it. Tyler partly relaxed. The man had a hand under her elbow. "Just a few feet now, Helen."

"I'm sorry. Not as spry as I used to be. Wish Edie hadn't left. Hope she's OK."

Tyler retracted all three blades on his knife and put it back in the sheath. "Anybody hungry?" He got up and started digging a pit in the grass where he could light a fire.

The man helped the woman to where she could sit and lean her back against the picnic table. "Heap big hunter," he said.

Tyler gave him enough eye to make him blanch under his dark skin. "Are you all right, ma'am?"

"I tripped on a log that I thought I could get over."

"You. There's some whiskey in the toolkit. Also some clean rags. Disinfect that leg." The fire began to smoke and Tyler fed it with grass from around the little pit. "Are you hungry?"

"A little, but you can have it all if you want," the woman said. "I'm Helen Simons."

Tyler shook her hand. "And him?"

"Cyrus Mackinernie." Cyrus didn't try to shake hands, being occupied with medicating Helen's injury. She hissed as the alcohol hit the bare flesh. "Sorry, Helen." Watching Tyler start to roast the squirrel, he said, "Don't you prefer 'em raw?"

"Don't you?"

Helen waited for an answer. "Well, Cyrus? The gentleman asked you a question," she said sharply.

He jumped a little, then smiled. "I forgot. You taught me in first grade."

"But not enough. Behave yourself. The children got home all right, didn't they?" she asked Tyler.

"All right, all night, and all of the day," he answered.

Helen sighed. "All right. Here's what we're going to do. We have everything we need right here to run a black powder factory and we have the equipment and manpower to supply the entire southeast. What we need is guards for shipments, and we need Teflon shells to load it into. What's your end of the production line?"

Tyler chuckled. "They told me you were a pistol."

"I'm nothing. You should have met Edie. I've seen her break lizards bare-handed."

"She left?"

"After she blew up the Birmingham refinery."

Tyler considered Helen slowly. "She left?"

"She said she had taught us all she could and would leave our CEUs to some expert. That must be you."

"I never heard of an Edie. Just in case I run across her, why not describe her and save both our lives?"

"Little woman, dark auburn hair, green eyes, old-fashioned hourglass figure, looks cuddly."

"But isn't."

Helen squinted at him with some humor. "The kids loved her."

Tyler showed his teeth. Kids sometimes liked serial killers. Then he thought of a little freckled girl who once kissed him on the cheek. Yeah, kids sometimes like the wrong people. That's why he had to kill those wrong people. "You show me the operation so I can report back." He handed her some squirrel on the end of his knife and she nibbled it down.

"Good enough. You walk about a mile that way," Helen pointed into the woods, "and you'll find our bivouac."

"Give me a moment to put out the fire and I'll drive you."

"You can't. No road."

Tyler hid the truck between a loading dock and the encroaching woods. "Wait a minute," he said, and cut a crutch for Helen. "That better?"

"Much. Thank you."

"You. Carry these." Tyler loaded Cyrus with a couple of AK-47s.

"What about you?"

Tyler grimaced again and hung cartridge belts all over himself, garnished with grenades.

"Satisfied?" Helen asked Cyrus wryly. He ducked his head and they set out for the campsite.

It was a wretched place built with lean-tos covered with tarps and a couple of bunkers. A guy in Siberia had shown Tyler similar bunkers dug by long-dead zeks on the same pattern as the foresters' huts of the previous century. Not comfortable, not healthy, but partial shelter from cold and precip. "You can share mine," Helen said.

That surprised Tyler but as soon as he got inside the bunker, he realized "mine" was a figure of speech. Eight people sat or lay on the dirt benches along the sides and another was cooking at a dirt stove with a cavity for the fire and a grill over the cavity for pots. Helen took the other squirrel from Tyler and handed it to the cook, who smiled. "I won't introduce you," Helen said, "because you're not going to be here long and you'll just forget."

"Try me," Tyler said.

"All right, that's Karen, Leo, Marcel, Tanisha, Umiyo, Kurt, Finn and Honor. And this is Cookie," Helen said, giving him a squeeze of the arm.

"You can call me Tyler," he said. "When do I see the works?"

"Tomorrow. We can use your truck then."

"All right, in the meantime I have a chore to take care of." Tyler went back to the truck and let loose one of his homing pigeons with the notepaper labeled green. In Chicago, they would know from the bird's banding who had released it, and in the meantime the lizards couldn't break comms. Then Tyler fed the rest of his birds.

A gun barked to the north, and he frowned. That was close. He pulled a sidearm out of the glove compartment and went hunting for the hunter. Sure enough, it was Cyrus. "If you were that hungry," Tyler growled, "you could have had the other squirrel." He looked at his messenger on the ground, then laid Cyrus out with a roundhouse to the chin. Cyrus dropped much too slowly; Tyler knew his own strength, and few humans could stand up to it. Tyler released another bird with the same message, then dragged Cyrus back to camp.

"Oh dear," Helen said when she saw them. "I can see I'm going to have to keep you boys separated."

"No," Tyler purred with a shred of a smile. "I want to be right on his ass to teach him another lesson the next time he insists on it." When Cyrus came to, Tyler told him, "As long as I'm here, don't you fire a weapon again without my prior permission."

"Who made you God?"

"I'm afraid I have to agree with Mr. Tyler on this," Helen told Cyrus. "You two aren't getting along very well, and he's crucial to our success." She put out her hand.

"What do you want?" he asked.

"Your gun. You'll be issued one if and when it's necessary."

Cyrus stared at her in disbelief. Tyler was getting ready to deck him again, when he turned the gun over. "I'll be damned glad when you're gone," he told Tyler.

Tyler gave him a snarl. Cookie served dinner just then so no answer was necessary.

"Mr. Tyler," Helen said that night, "come sit with me a while. I want you to understand about Cyrus."

"Nothing to understand."

"Just listen. Cyrus not only was never the brightest boy in my class, it was like he had to be told everything. The first day when the lunch bell rang, I had to tell him to go eat lunch. When the last bell rang, I had to tell him to go home. That went on for three months. When school ended, I woke up the next Monday with a funny feeling. I went shopping and drove past the school on purpose. There was Cyrus, sitting on the front step, waiting for the door to open. I told him he didn't have to go to school that week, and his dad would let him know when he should come back.

"Nobody really knows what was wrong with him. It could have been fetal alcohol syndrome, except nobody ever caught his mother drunk while she was pregnant. It could have been abuse, but nobody ever saw him with any bruises let alone casts or bandages. I asked his father once whether he knew why he had to tell Cyrus to do everything and Mr. Mackinernie didn't have a clue."

"There are lots of slow people in the world."

"But he was a C student. He even got some Bs. He has the neatest penmanship, too. It doesn't make sense."

Tyler almost asked who told Cyrus to kill the bird. But he stuck that in his hip pocket and became more determined than before to keep an eye on Cyrus Mackinernie 24/7. "Lots of things don't make sense."

"I don't know why he's taken such a dislike to you."

Tyler stood up. "Ms. Simons, it's late and I want some shuteye. But just so you don't worry about this too much, lots of people take a dislike to me. You warn Cyrus that most of the ones who tried to do something about it are dead, and the rest wish they were." He tramped off to the bunker and fell into a deep dark hole for the rest of the night.

Bang. He woke to smell mush, which turned out to be made of nuts, dried berries, and acorns with the tannin leached out. Time for the tour. Marcel drove because he knew the way. Tyler let his mind catalog the route and at the same time try to narrow down what might be wrong with Cyrus. Lizard? That would explain how he took that punch so well. The voice was all wrong for that, barring surgery. And how could he go to Ms. Simons' first grade class and be an adult now, and still be a lizard? Unless… Nah. That way lay paranoia, and while paranoia seemed more normal to Tyler than it did to most people, the idea that lizards reached earth decades ago didn't wash.

Maybe his whole nervous system was slow; it took a while to get the message that it should fall over. Tyler shrugged mentally. Could be. It remained to be seen how fast on the draw the guy could be once he got a gun in his hands again. Would he go after Tyler immediately, or wait for an opportunity? Or forget about it.

Why did he shoot the pigeon without anybody telling him to do it? That nagged.

"This is it," Helen said.

Tyler woke up.

The tour was a success, and Tyler mentally prepared the encrypted message to be sent with his next pigeon – after disabling Cyrus – while they drove back. Helen was right. They could turn out millions of rounds at that old mine if a) they had the casings and b) somebody wanted them bad enough to provide transportation. Somebody did want them. Tyler would see to it that the casings began to arrive. Marcel parked the truck where they had gotten into it. Tyler stayed behind to send his message while the others tramped away into the woods.

He took the pigeon out of the crate and stroked it down, then tethered it to the crate and sprinkled some seed to keep it occupied. He uncapped the indelible pen to write the encrypted message, when something in the back of Tyler's mind surged forward. He couldn't hear the brush breaking. That was much too fast. Somebody had captured Helen and Marcel. He fastened a simple green note to the bird and released it. Checked the clip of his Glock and the sheath of his knife, Tyler softly retrieved an Uzi from a special reserve, filled his pockets with clips and strapped on a couple of cartridge belts. He should be able to find them. The lizards had knocked them out instead of snatching them, or the sounds would have gotten louder instead of stopping altogether.

The lizards knew where the path was. They had been waiting for the humans to come back. Therefore they knew that there were humans to be grabbed. Therefore somebody had squealed. If Helen was right, it wasn't Cyrus. The traitor was somebody else. Maybe that was who had told Cyrus to shoot the bird. At any rate, he was dead meat.

Tyler worked around to the east of the path to the camp. Two lizards for two people? Another thirty to fifty at the camp?

You anticipate, you're dead. Deal with what is and don't think about anything else until it comes up.

All right. Two of them stood guard over Marcel and Helen. A shot now alerts the rest; a knife in one alerts the other. Tyler squatted and put down his Uzi, then drew the twin knives from his belt. A flick, and both lizards fell.

Marcel was dead. Helen still breathed. Tyler laid his jacket over her. Patting her shoulder, he thought, hold tight, lady. I'll get back to you just as soon as I can.

Fully armed once more, and with two fresh lasers hanging from his belt, Tyler stealthily approached the camp from the east, then circled it to the north. The latrines were on this side, so even if the wind shifted, the lizards wouldn't notice him.

Two guards. Only two guards. The lean-tos lay flat on the ground. The guards stood at the bunkers. Everybody crammed in there. Were they beating the woods for more? And how the hell did they find it?

Tyler circled widdershins some more and found the track of beaten foliage that showed how the lizards arrived, but that didn't answer how they knew which direction to walk. More evidence of a traitor. The width of the track showed that more lizards had arrived than what he had killed or could see. He drew back to his earlier position, wiped the knives on his pants, used them, and crept forward to dispose of the two intruders in the camp. Loading them onto his shoulders, he carried them into the woods and stripped off their uniforms.

When Tyler got back to the bunkers, the afternoon was almost gone and nobody had come out to change shifts. Sundown should bring the rest of the trackers soon, so he scratched on the door of one of the bunkers. Then he morsed AOK. Soon the door popped as somebody inside used all their body weight to pull it open. Cookie looked out, and his eyes widened when he saw Tyler. He took the uniform shoved at him, passed it back and took the other one as well.

"Quick."

In less than five minutes Cookie and Umiyo came out lizardified and took up their positions. The others poured out of the door and followed Tyler's pointing finger. Then he liberated the other bunker. Once safely hidden, he passed out weapons and posted his lookouts and his snipers.

About ten feet of the tops of the tallest trees remained in sunlight when the lizards returned noisily from their expedition. They called to the guards and asked angry questions. Which of course Cookie and Umiyo couldn't understand, but which Tyler guessed had to do with his first two kills. One lizard raised a hand, and it was his last motion. A volley from the woods took out fifteen of the lizards while Cookie and Umiyo hit the deck. Tyler killed the lone survivor.

From behind him he heard the pulse of a laser. Tyler waited a minute to see if he felt the burn personally, and when instead a cool breeze dried the sweat on the back of his neck, he turned around.

Cyrus lay on the ground and a weeping Helen dropped the laser. Tyler sighed in sympathy for her, then walked over and looked gloomily at the body. "How do you feel?"

She laughed somewhat hysterically. "Well, except for the bump on my head and the ache in my heart, I'm pretty good. He was aiming at you."

"I know."

"How?"

"It's the only thing that would have made you shoot him. But he's not the one who tipped off the lizards."

"How do you know?"

"You said it. He didn't have the initiative for something like that. Somebody got to him between the time you took me into your bunker, and the time he shot my carrier pigeon. So." Tyler walked over to the group. "You, you…" he said fifteen times, pointing at each of the people who did not live in Helen's bunker. "You can decide among you who I shoot. Whoever it is, was responsible for Cyrus' death. You may not have liked him, but he was your buddy. You tell me who takes the bullet for him. Don't take all night about it, either." Then he sat down against a tree and laid his Uzi across his knees.

Karen said, "This is crazy!"

"Whoever it was is also responsible for Marcel's death. He's lying back there at the edge of the woods. If you don't believe me, go look. No, not you. I want you bunch where I can see you. The rest of you – Karen, Leo, Tanisha, Umiyo, Kurt, Finn, Honor, Cookie. You can go."

They hesitated, then Cookie and Umiyo took the detail. When they came back, they looked grim. Each took a post outside a bunker; nobody would go inside until they knew who the traitor was.

The night turned darker yet and drops of rain began to light on their heads. "You want to get in and get dry and get dinner?" Tyler said. "Give up the traitor."

The little herd of bewildered people stared at each other and then at their friends. "How are we supposed to tell?" one of them finally said in an angry voice.

"I don't care," Tyler said. "I could shoot each one of you and see if any of you bleed green. I've done it before so it doesn't particularly bother me. I don't think Helen would like me to do that, but since she has killed today, as you have seen, I could be wrong."

Footsteps came running down the path leading to the camp. "Jason," a voice called.

One man crouched; Tyler shot him in the leg and he dropped. Tyler spun and shot the lizard who appeared in the clearing, then walked over to Jason. "Tell me why I shouldn't tie you upside down in a tree and let the rest of them beat you to a pulp like Mussolini."

The laser spat again and Jason fell back. "No," Helen said, "torture would have been fine if we didn't know who he was, but now that we know, I don't want a long dragged out affair. Some of you drag the lizards out and bury them if you can, just make sure it's downhill and very deep. Don't need to poison our water."

In the morning Tyler sent the detailed encrypted message and began packing up. Helen came walking out to him. "So?"

"It's a go. I don't know when, but I sent in an approval."

"I hope you told them to make it quick. We're going to move to the mine."

"The WLF…" Tyler began.

"The WLF!" Helen snorted. "I guess you haven't been listening to the news."

"I was just at headquarters," Tyler answered.

"That was more than a week ago," she shot back. He nodded warily. "Did you know Nathan Bates is dead?"

"I was there when it happened." Tyler tried not to drop his eyes but he knew he gave up something when Helen's eyes narrowed.

"Did you know the lizards are using LA for target practice?"

Tyler's gut started burning. And I have one more assignment. Good luck, Julie, you're on your own.

"Did you know that there's been a steady stream of people through here coming up from the Gulf? You know what they tell me?" Tyler shook his head briefly. "You can't survive in the south any more. The WLF has abandoned them. The people who used to lead the resistance down there are building little fiefdoms. If you aren't in good with some of them, you're toast. And even if you are in good with them, you stand a chance of being traded in for benefits."

"So why are they going north?"

"Because at least you can live on your own above the freeze line."

"And you're still here because…."

"Still. You get the WLF to deal or that won't stay true."

"They'll deal. You start production. You have a month to make enough black powder for about a million rounds."

3. The Big Easy

All right, Remy, where are you and what did you do to put you there?

Remy O'Brien was a pretty good pilot and the WLF needed pilots to make drops. He was also a crazy kind of guy and you never knew what could make him tear off on some private crusade. He disappeared two months earlier after an assignment to the Big Easy. Tyler wanted this settled fast, but he wanted to settle Remy's hash right. The two might not be compatible.

Franchot took off down the alley. Tyler shook his head; some people never learn. He took out his Mauser and despite the darkness, made the shot count. Franchot went down screaming. Tyler made his way over the damp pitted asphalt with the stench of a subtropical back street and knelt as the boy tried to wriggle away from him. "_Mon ami_," Tyler said, "how many times have I warned you that you're not Superman and you can't outrun a bullet."

Choice words spilled out of Franchot's mouth as he tried to stanch the blood flowing from his leg with his hands. They finally resolved into "Still sound like some tight-ass Quebeçois, not no Yat."

"Just answer some questions and you won't have to listen to me much longer."

"Lizards'll hear, breathin' down our necks any minute, you want dat?"

"Franchot, the sooner you answer me the sooner we get out of this alley. Of course, I could just pack up and go. You want to take the chance of meeting lizards on your own with that hole in your leg? Talk to me and I'll get you somewhere safe and even stop the bleeding."

Franchot panted a bit. "You always keep your promises." He gasped. "God, it hurts. What you need ta know?"

"Remy O'Brien." Franchot looked at him, wild-eyed. "You're still bleeding."

"Don't know."

"Now or ever?"

It seemed like a simple question to Tyler but Franchot had to think it over. "You go over Café Masper' on Decatur."

"What's there." Tyler didn't wait for an answer. "How much you worried about lizards, Franchot?"

Franchot licked his lips. "Ask for Laduke. He not dere, you leave a message."

"Yeah you right. Try again."

"Awrite. Nine tirty in de mawning."

"Come on." Tyler heaved the boy up. There was a place to sleep on the left after they got out of the alley. He dug the bullet out, bound up the leg and let the kid have the sofa. He had six hours for sleep and then he could meet this Laduke.

Day 2

The opener didn't want to let Tyler in. "We closed," he said through the door.

"I can read." Tyler pointed at the hours posted on the door glass. "Laduke needs to hear from me. Tell him Frenchie sent me."

The opener gave him a disbelieving look and walked away, leaving the door locked. He came back fifteen minutes later. Grumbling, he said, "Laduke ax why Frenchie sent you."

Tyler squeezed through the crack left when the opener pulled on the door. "Frenchie couldn't answer my questions. And no, this is not about Laduke, in case he ax."

He followed the guy who said, "You wanna coffee?"

"Yeah."

"Reg'lar?"

Tyler dug back into his experiences. "No. Nothing in it."

The opener gave him a dirty look. "Fine." It came in a big mug and it was hot. Tyler took a swig. The opener disappeared. A man came through the same swinging door and sat down next to Tyler.

"What you want, cap?"

"Remy O'Brien. Him or information leading to him."

Laduke chuckled and went around the counter to pour himself coffee, a regular. "Ain't nobody seen Remy two, tree month. You fine Big Tom Backus. He can't help you, come back, I'll fix you up with Antoine Duplessis. One 'nother o' dem know everyting."

"Where?"

Laduke chuckled again. "Backus at the po-lees."

Tyler drained his mug and put down a dollar. "Thanks."

"Lagniappe."

Tyler went for the bathroom and thought things over. He checked his hardware, then walked out, nodding to Laduke, who was still behind the counter and nodded back with a grin. The opener followed Tyler and locked the door behind him.

Tyler walked as quietly as he could. No traffic in this ghost town, that was one advantage. Anybody left hid or waited until they couldn't afford not to take the risk of going out. Anybody he met –

And he met him at the second (not the first) alley. Alert ears caught the breath the perp took before throwing a garotte around his neck, so Tyler had time to get one hand under it and the other on a knife. The garotte loosened when the knife went into the perp's stomach, and he stood there holding the gash. Which bled green.

Tyler grabbed him by the neck of his T-shirt and dragged him back to the café. One good kick broke in the carres around the panes of glass, and the next broke the door frame. He pushed it in and hauled the dying perp onto the linoleum. "Laduke!" he bellowed. When curious heads appeared, he said, "Somebody lose some luggage?" Then he walked out.

Laduke must have sent out a runner. A man in police uniform waited on the steps of the main station, arms folded. "You Tyler?"

"Who says I am?"

"You looking for Remy."

"Yeah."

"Dat guy you knifed was my liaison with the lizards."

"He needed a lesson. Now you need a new liaison."

"Yeah you right." Backus spat on the pavement. "Bot'. Dey gotta gimme a better boy next time. You eat?"

"Not yet."

"You come wit' me, I know where dey still make a mufuletta."

Tyler wiped olive salad off his chin with a paper napkin and Backus asked him "You need work?"

"No, just info."

"Why you need Remy?"

"We work for the same people. They haven't heard from him in a long time."

"Me too." Big Tom finished his half of the mufuletta and wiped his face and hands. "Now what?"

"I hang around until I find out." Let's see how many perps he sends after me now. Tyler reached for his wallet.

"I'm payin'," Big Tom said.

Tyler grinned. "Sure you are."

Big Tom grinned back, then chuckled. "You stayin', you need protection. You work for me, you got it."

"Doing what?"

Big Tom took a toothpick from the holder on the counter and used it a little, then stuck it in the corner of his mouth. "I been tryin' to remember where I hear the name Tyler. Seems like I could use what you got. Not many people get the drop on a lizard, even a dumb one, and live to tell. Job I got, is a shipment coming in."

"The docks still open for binness?"

"So far."

"And you got binness wit' the docks."

"Yeah you right." Big Tom outlined what was coming in, when, and where it had to go.

Tyler went back to his room, opened his pack and made sure Franchot hadn't stolen anything. Then he woke the boy up and kicked his ass out, and spent the rest of the day preparing for his first day's work for Big Tom Backus.

Day 3

"No, back that up one car length," Tyler told the engine driver.

"What fo'?"

Tyler gave him a glare. "Dis my fust job fo' Big Tom," he growled. "Which of us want to screw it up?"

The engineer pushed the train backward one car length.

"I give the signal, you pull it up one car."

"Yeah you right," the engineer said sullenly. "What in dat car?"

Tyler just laughed. A guy came over from the ship, jacket unbuttoned and cap on sideways. Ship-going dress codes differed widely; this ship didn't have one. "You got my shipment?" Tyler asked.

"I got it. Where you want it?"

"Can you hit the tracks there?"

"Sure."

"Then do it." Tyler watched the box car swing on the crane and lower toward the flatbed train car. When it hit, the flatbed clanged. Somebody ought to run to fasten it tight, he thought. Somebody might be that guy looking at me now from between the cars on that front train. He signaled with two fingers, then waved his arm toward the left and the face disappeared back between the cars. He heard a slight clink and then behind him bolts shot on semi-automatic weapons. "Who we got?" he asked without turning around.

"Too many," said one of the guards sent with him by Big Tom.

"Give me a number."

"Thirty."

Tyler sighed. "Never make assumptions." Spinning, he pulled out his Uzi and took the five on one end of the line. "Your turn."

"Wait!" A tall man in some well-worn casual clothing came out from behind a dumpster. "Dey tell me you good, dey don't lie. But de rest of 'em…Hah."

"Antoine," whispered the guard next to Tyler.

Antoine continued. "You give me de car, den you go home."

"OK."

Antoine looked surprised, but motioned his men forward.

"Uh, I wouldn't do that if I were you."

"Why not?"

Tyler reached with one hand into the opposite sleeve of his jacket and pushed the button he knew was there. A ball of fire launched into the sky and everybody on the dock threw themselves flat. White powder rained down. Some of Antoine's people tried to scrape up bits that landed near them and sniffed it, then put it in their mouths.

"Aw, shit," said one of them.

"No pickups at the store," Tyler said. "Deliveries only."

Antoine looked around the dock at his men, at the white powder, and back at Tyler. Then he began to laugh. First he chortled, then he guffawed, then he bent over and the fit continued until he had to wipe his face with a large bandanna pulled out of his hip pocket. "Dat one good trick," he said. "Now let's see how Big Tom like it. Come on." He and his men retreated.

At sundown Tyler walked back to his room from the restaurant where, on the strength of his employment with Big Tom, he had scored some pretty good shrimp etouffee. Much more of this, he thought, and I'm going to have a gut like everybody else here. I gotta get an efficiency with a kitchen to keep the leftovers. He shifted the toothpick in his mouth and patted his jacket pocket, feeling the paper there crinkle.

The baseball bat slammed into his skull but the batter screamed when Tyler's knife sliced through his arm, and he fell back. Two other guys tried to come in on him, but one would be staying out of cathouses for a while and the other took a bullet in the gut. It took five of them to immobilize him and they dropped him onto the pavement. "He dead?" one asked.

Another bent down and felt Tyler's neck. "No. Big Tom say leave dat fo' him."

"Hey, I need help here," the bleeding one said.

"Come on." The four who still had whole skins picked Tyler up and dumped him in the truckbed. "He wakes up, you punch him out," ordered the one who seemed in charge.

"He dead?" Big Tom asked when they dragged Tyler's ass into the station.

"No."

"He got anything on him?"

After a search, the guy handed Big Tom a piece of paper from the breast pocket on the jacket. Big Tom opened it and read in complete silence, then he started laughing.

"What so funny?" Taking the paper that Big Tom offered him, he read "You kill me and you'll never get the drugs back."

"Get a doctor," said Big Tom.

Tyler woke to find Big Tom gloating over him. "You good awrite," said Big Tom. "It took eight guys, and four a dem in da hospital."

"I don't feel too good myself," Tyler grunted.

"You be fine. Where's da drugs?"

Tyler stretched and groaned, then sat up slowly and felt the bump on the back of his head. "Remy."

"I get you some coffee."

"Not regular," Tyler said behind him, and groaned again.

When Big Tom came back with the coffee, he said, "You meet Antoine, huh?"

"Yeah you right." Tyler drank. "You got any aspirin?"

"Here." He was prepared for that question. "I said…"

"You said you hadn't heard from Remy. That's a long way from not knowing what happened to him."

Big Tom eyed Tyler. "I don't know where he is."

"Still no good."

After a pause, Big Tom said, "Antoine tell you anyting, you tell me. I fill in de gaps. Go to Ugly's."

Tyler peered at him. "By myself?"

"No, I'll send some guys with you all right."

"They better be better than the last crew you sent with me."

"I got a vested interest in keepin' you alive, don't I?"

"Why doesn't that reassure me?"

Barron Street looked about two degrees better than some third world back street, and only because the signs were in English. The police corporal with him pointed out Uglesich's. "Used to have lines out the door at lunch," Corporal Duchesne said. "Wanna beer?"

Tyler nodded shortly and they went inside. Tyler took his beer to a corner that, although near the bathrooms, let him see everybody who came in or just walked by. One of the troopers tried to sit down opposite him. "No, boy. That's not how it's done," Tyler said, and pointed to a different chair backed against the wall. This was the better crew?

After a while they ordered because they didn't want to piss off Anthony, the owner. "Sorry dey so small," Anthony said putting down plates Tyler considered well-filled.

Tyler shrugged and dug into the remoulade shrimp. Then he put down his fork and watched Antoine Duplessis swan in through the door backed by a dozen guys.

Antoine stopped dead and grinned when he saw Tyler. "Roun' two?" he said.

Tyler showed his teeth and nodded.

"Why?"

"Remy."

Antoine's face darkened. "Big Tom sent you, di'nt he." He gave up waiting for Tyler to answer. "Yeah you right. Tol' you he'd fill in the gaps, huh? You know why, don'cha?"

Tyler erupted from his seat and in seconds had Antoine for a shield. "Put them down," he told Antoine's crew. He felt Antoine nod and the crew laid down various sharp and explosive tools. "Now. Somebody is playing keepaway with some information I need. I have Big Tom neutralized because he's got a huge stake in keeping me alive. The only way you can prove to me that you're harmless, is to start talking."

"I ain't heard from Remy." Antoine gasped as Tyler's grip on his throat tightened.

"That's exactly the kind of non-denial denial I got from Big Tom. Don't tell me what you don't know. Tell me what you do know and tell me now."

"He dead."

"And I should believe you because?"

"Dere's one other person besides me who knows for sure he dead."

"Where?"

"You'll never get in I don't take you."

"You don't take me, you don't go anywhere again. Outside of a box."

The outside of the building on Bourbon Street probably made it one of the most photographed locations in the Vieux Carre, with its three-level stucco walls and ironwork galleries. The guys at the doorway dug their hands deeper in their pockets when they saw the stranger, but Antoine waved them off and took Tyler upstairs. The interior would have looked good in any decorating magazine of pre-lizard times, with antique or reproduction furniture and a deep white rug in the middle of the shining hardwood floor. On the swooning couch next to the street front windows sat one of the purely most beautiful women Tyler had ever seen. From her fall of silky blonde hair, past the dark brows and sparkling blue eyes set on elegant cheekbones, to the perfectly proportioned figure, she represented every fashion photographer's dream subject. She leaned on the back in a pose first popularized by Madame Recamier, holding a magazine on her lap as she looked up with a lipstick case pointed at her lips. "Who dat wit' you, Antoine," she asked.

"Dis Lacy," Antoine said. "I'm gonna get us some drinks. Lacy, dis Mr. Tyler. We got some bidness." Before he left the room, Antoine grinned at Tyler. "She de one."

Tyler swiveled back to look at Lacy who raised her eyebrows in surprise and asked, "De one what?"

Tyler sat down on a nearby sofa with ball-and-claw feet and cleared his throat. "I been trying to get some information for three days now. Mr. Duplessis told me part of it. He says you know more."

" 'Bout what?"

"Guy named Remy O'Brien."

Lacy's eyes flew to the door through which Antoine had disappeared and that beautiful mouth tightened. "I don' wanna talk 'bout him." She sounded like a child afraid of getting a whipping as promised by somebody who didn't want her talking about this subject any more.

Tyler rubbed his palms together, head down, but when he looked at her, he said, "Mr. Duplessis tells me he's dead."

A slight sniff. "He is." Very soft.

"You saw him?"

"Yes." Even softer.

"You sure?"

"Yes," Lacy whispered.

"They bury him?"

Lacy only nodded.

"Where?"

Antoine came back to the door and Lacy gave him a shaky look as he handed Tyler a drink. "You two have a good talk?"

Tyler stood and swallowed half his drink. "I want to see Remy O'Brien's grave."

"She knows where it is."

"Miz Lacy?" Tyler asked.

"I have to take you there." Lacy looked to Antoine for approval and it rubbed Tyler wrong. Again, her childish expression read like a child who isn't quite sure yet that she hasn't done something wrong, even though she hasn't specifically been told not to.

"Yeah, you take him, Lacy. Finish your drink, Tyler. Put some other shoes on, Lacy. You'll kill your feet in dose."

Lacy came out of the other room wearing loafers and carrying joggers. "Which ones, Antoine?"

"The loafers look better, just don't try running in dem."

She put back the joggers and Tyler's vibes got worse. Maybe she was mentally challenged, but that's not quite how it read in his gut. More like a pet kept on a leash. As they left the apartment, Antoine told her, "Pick up Alphonse at the door."

"Yes, Antoine."

That turned out to be the guy on the right of the door. Lacy walked left to the next intersection, took a right, then a left for a short way, and then seemed undecided whether to keep going straight or not. Looking right, she saw a park and the puzzled frown on her face lightened. She turned right, then left and into the park. The church across from it drew her like a magnet, and she toured around to the churchyard behind it. Letting them in through the ironwork gate, Lacy looked over the rows of tombstones and ossuaries. An ossuary with Roman pillars grabbed her attention. She walked toward it and around the far side, then fixed on a headstone with two hearts, and finally approached one under a willow on the far side of the yard. Again she seemed puzzled and looked around with a face about to crumple in frustration. "Where are the roses?" she asked herself quietly. Then she caught site of some leaves on the threshold of a nearby mausoleum; she picked them up and examined them, nodded to herself and then turned her back on that. "This is it," she said simply, pointing.

Tyler walked up beside her. "His name isn't on it," he remarked.

"I saw. This is it."

"Then why did they put up a memorial for somebody else," Tyler asked gently.

"They did?" Lacy seemed about to cry.

Tyler turned sharply toward her. He knew she wasn't blind but apparently she was illiterate. Even more gently, he said, "It says 'Sacred to the Memory of Justin Berceau.' "

Her mouth opened in shocked denial, and then she shook her head and walked quickly away.

"Lacy!"

She motioned with one hand as if to push him away as he tried to follow her, then fled the graveyard with Alphonse following her after one angry look at Tyler.

On the way to the graveyard, Tyler had watched Lacy's every move without bothering to look at street signs. He made it out of the graveyard and through the park, then stopped uncertainly and none too happy to be alone. Passersby looked at him curiously or with hostility. The sun sat burning in the west. We had the sun at our backs, Tyler thought, so he headed into it. He got deep into a crowd of people who seemed not to like his face much. Like that was anything new. Tyler kept pushing and finally broke across Rampart Street. He went into the nearest restaurant and asked for directions back to his digs, then when he got there asked the desk clerk where he could get a small apartment.

"Why you want dat?"

"I want a fridge and stove," Tyler admitted.

"Go 'cross de street. Tell Mavis Lil Joe sent you."

"Mister, you are the most helpful person I've met in four goddamned days," Tyler said.

Day 4

"You get what you want?" Big Tom asked over beignets and coffee in the morning.

"No, and you're going to help me get the rest of it," Tyler said, grabbing the police chief's arm and wrenching him out of his chair. "Send for a prybar and a couple of shovels."

"What?"

"We're going to St. Louis Cathedral and we're going to find us a body."

"Can't do dat widout a court order," Big Tom answered.

"Yeah, right. And you can't get your drugs widout we do dat," Tyler mimicked.

As they examined the mausoleum door, Big Tom tried one last time. "I do dis, you take the explosives off de box car door, yeah?"

Tyler laughed shortly. "No."

"Den what I do dis for?"

"Because if you don't I'll bash your goddamned head in. Won't be the first time and right now, I got nothing to lose."

June in New Orleans is like August in New York. Tyler dripped in sweat and he thought Big Tom would melt into a puddle of grease by the time they got the mausoleum open. Tyler used his shovel edge like an axe and split the coffin lid along the edge of the part that had opened for the viewing. Then he dug that part of the lid back against the stone wall. "The guy's in a suit!"

"What?"

"Embalmed and everything. Wait." Tyler dug into the coffin and wrestled a dead arm off its shoulder. "A wedding ring. Remy didn't wear a ring." He put things back and exitted back into the graveyard. "That isn't Remy."

"She must have been wrong. You gonna let me have my shipment?"

"You gonna tell me the truth?"

"Lacy." Big Tom paused to let it sink in. "Lacy kill Remy."

Why would she show me the wrong grave? The thought burned in Tyler's mind as he went back to his tiny room. She wouldn't. She's illiterate and innocent as a child. Then he shook his head. You're slipping, Tyler. Nobody keeps a gorgeous woman like that only to keep her as innocent as a child. She's his mistress. It soured his gut. She has nobody else but the man who uses her to warm his bed and keeps her ignorant of everything but what he tells her.

And he told her Remy was in that grave. Since she can't read, she didn't know any different. Until yesterday. Now – if she isn't just plain stupid, she'll realize Antoine's been lying to her. And I don't think she's stupid. She didn't make a single wrong turn taking the shortest route to the graveyard. But she never looked at a street sign. She used the architecture of the storefronts and restaurants and the decorations on the headstones. If I'm Antoine, I let her go there once and only once, because I don't want her dwelling on it and asking questions. A stupid person would never have found her way back.

She didn't make it up. There's a hollow bottom to that casket. But I have to prove it without Big Tom's help. He's stonewalling me, and that includes telling me that Lacy killed Remy.

Unlocking, Tyler felt gratified to see the slip of paper in the door frame float down to the floor. An oldie but goodie, he thought. He carried in the bag with the po'boy in it and set that on the counter next to the tiny stove. I'm a mess.

Tyler pulled his spare clothes out of his duffel and headed for the closet of a bathroom. Setting them on the toilet lid, he started to strip and came face to face with the message on the mirror. In a deep rose color of lipstick, it said, "If you stop now you'll never learn the truth."

The lipstick case rested on the yoke of the sink. Faux tortoise shell. Tyler flashed on a perfectly manicured hand lowering a lipstick as a beautiful woman caught sight of him. Damn. He went to the kitchen and took out a baggie, lowered it over the lipstick and scooped it up, hoping he hadn't smudged any prints.

Next step, Tyler. Catch Lacy when Antoine is out – or tell him you want to apologize for upsetting her and then confront her with the lipstick. No. Gotta be alone with her. Gotta find out how to get around his protection and see her alone.

Day 5

Big Tom headed for his morning beignets. He reached for the front door handle and yelped as it banged open against his hand. Customers ran out passing him, terror on their faces. When he stepped inside, he could see an evil red gleam flickering behind the porthole of the kitchen door. As he watched, a flame licked around the top corner of the door. The sprinkler system didn't come on. Why not?

Big Tom retreated and called the fire station. Nobody picked up on the other end of the line. A crash of glass followed by a roar of flames showed the fire was spreading. Big Tom ran to the next shop, but it wasn't open yet. Same for the café across the street; it didn't open until lunch. A crowd developed on the other side of the street. "See if one of y'all can raise the fire department," Tom shouted at them. One guy ran to a pay phone on the corner, but soon lowered the receiver with a gesture of helplessness.

Big Tom sighed and made it his business to push people back while the fire slowly destroyed Café Du Monde. Then he helped sift the ruins and found, of all things, a lizard skeleton near the stove's frame. "What the hell?" Questioning the kitchen personnel, he learned that it had rolled off the top of a freezer, knocking over a fryer with the first beignets of the morning. The gas fire had leaped out and soon the kitchen had caught. "You smell anything funny when you get here?"

"No. But dat fire run like der's gasoline on everyting," said the cook, wiping smoke tears from his eyes.

Who cut off the sprinklers and the fire department's phone was anybody's guess.

Tyler stepped over the gallery ironwork on the third floor and went inside an open French window. He unlocked the door of the apartment on the inside, went through, re-set the lock and closed the door, then went down the stairs.

One thing about being boss of the Vieux Carre during the lizard invasion was that Antoine thought his worst worries were the lizards, and he thought he had co-opted them. His next biggest worry was Big Tom, and the lines between their turfs seemed pretty solid. Each raked off his take from his own territory. Should some accident take out the other, the survivor would move in but, until then, they seemed to have a serious truce. But he did have guards downstairs and outside.

Tyler knocked on Antoine's apartment door. When nobody answered for five minutes, he thought, she's out. You didn't do enough surveillance, idiot! Then the door clicked.

"What do you want?" Lacy asked, all small child who has been lied to and hates the liar.

"I want to apologize. I'm sorry I got you so upset the other day. It's kind of how I am. I step all over people to get what I want. Remy was a friend of mine," he said quietly, "and I just wanted to find out what happened to him. It was as big a shock to me that he wasn't in that grave as it was to you. You were so sure you knew and you seemed like the only person who hadn't lied to me the whole time I've been here."

"I didn't lie," Lacy whispered.

"I know."

She looked him in the eyes, and then began to close the door.

"Miz Lacy, I think you lost something the other day."

"I didn't."

"Can I show you? Inside?"

"Antoine don't like me letting people in."

"All right." Tyler took the baggie out of his pocket. "Don't you have one just like this?" Lacy grabbed for the baggie but he jerked it back. "I can't let you touch this just yet because it might ruin everything. It will take time to explain why."

Lacy hesitated for almost two minutes, then stepped back and opened the door wider. "You ain't pretty but… Antoine never lets nobody come in here he don't trust…"

Damn. She really is like a child. "Miz Lacy, you ever hear of fingerprints?"

"No. I ain't dumb," she said defiantly.

"That's not what I meant. Nobody who was dumb could have gotten us to that headstone so quick. You've only been there once, haven't you?"

"How did you know?"

Sourness burned. "If I was Antoine and I knew how much it hurt you, I'd only let you go there once, just so you could see for yourself. Takes a real smart person to find their way to a place they've only been once."

Lacy looked at the floor, absorbing that. "What's a fingerprint?"

Tyler sat her on the sofa, took her hand and turned it over. "See those little lines? Well, they make a pattern. Every single person in the world has a different set of patterns. Even identical twins have different patterns.

"Now, your fingertips pick up a little of everything they get into, grease on fried chicken or powdered sugar on a beignet. And when you press them against a solid surface, like a table or glass or even a piece of paper, whatever was on your fingertips gets on that solid surface. And the police can sprinkle a light dust on it and it will stick to the marks left by your fingertips, and the police can figure out who left the marks, if they have a copy of that person's marks in their records.

"Now, I didn't want you to touch this baggie because it might not be as hard as a table, but it could still pick up your prints. And Miz Lacy, I don't want your fingerprints anywhere near this baggie because I want to prove is this your lipstick or not."

"I don't know."

"You don't have one missing?"

"No, but I just bought a new one yesterday so if dere was one missing I wouldn't know any more."

"Why did you buy a new one?"

"Maum Euphrasie said she saw a new color in de store so I made shopping and she showed me which one."

"You got a lot?" Lacy looked at Tyler doubtfully. Damn, she can't count either. "Never mind. I found this in my bathroom. Somebody used it to write a message on the mirror." He handed her a scrap of paper with the message on it.

Lacy looked at the marks on the paper, then handed it back to him in confusion.

Tyler read her the message.

"Truth about what."

"I think it means the truth about Remy's death."

Lacy wrung her slender fingers. "Why you gotta know dat?"

Tyler laughed shortly. "I guess it's cause I'm one mean pit bull. At first I was doing it because I was told to. But too many people are trying to keep the truth from me and I can't let them get away with it. I don't want to do it by hurting you. I just wanted you to understand why this lipstick is important, and why I couldn't let you touch it." He rubbed his jaw. "Do you have to tell Antoine I was here?"

"Not he don't ask. How you get in?"

"From upstairs."

Her eyes flew wide and she chuckled. "I bet Antoine never tink of dat."

Tyler grinned back. "That's why I did it."

"Den he never know." If she had said "pinky swear" Tyler wouldn't have been surprised.

Tyler cleared his throat. "I wish I could think of some way to protect you."

"From what?"

"I just have a feeling something really bad is going on that could wind up hurting you, and I don't want that. I can't get you to leave here, can I?"

Now the wide eyes were frightened. "Where I go?"

"Exactly. Well," he sighed, "I'll leave you now. Just remember, if you think you need help, I'd like to do that for you."

Lacy's blue eyes tried to see behind this ugly man's eyes, dark like sunglasses covering his feelings. "You better go."

"I know."

Tyler looked at the bodies on the pavement and thought, somebody is getting pissed with me. Which one? He bent over and rifled pockets – all of them, since the bodies couldn't do anything about it; even the living ones were unconscious. He stuffed coins and folding money into his own pockets, but none of the bodies had an ID. The closest Tyler found to that, was a piece of paper with a pencil copy of the note on his mirror. Tyler pulled a baggie out of his shirt pocket and pressed that guy's fingers on the compass inside. Back in his room, he dusted the prints and compared them to the lipstick case as best he could. Damn. They're different.

He chewed over the possibilities as he treated his own bruises and cuts. Antoine lied to Lacy. Remy isn't dead and the body they buried isn't him. He's hiding and trying to get me to find him. Remy left the message and if Big Tom lets me see his records, I could prove that.

Two. The guy got the message by copying it off the mirror and that means somebody got him into my place without going through the door. Or he knew the trick and put the paper back. I can believe Big Tom would tell one of his minions to check for that. Probably also Antoine. Nothing to choose between the two options.

Tyler left to check on the box car again. The chain was solid, the lock still on it, the explosives where and as he left them. Running his hands over the metal, Tyler inspected his palms from time to time and found no powder leaking. A good sized live oak hung over the roof so he climbed that and stepped down to make sure nobody else had used the natural ladder. All clean. He lay down on it to rest a moment, tired not only from the activity but from the mental effort of analyzing the facts he had. They didn't give him a clue about where to go next, except to take Lacy's fingerprints. I know that will be a bust. Either that or she is the planet's greatest living actress. And I don't want to believe that.

Tyler jumped down off the boxcar, retrieved the fingerprints from his room and went to see Big Tom. "Got some fingerprints here I want to check out," he said.

"Back dere," Big Tom waved.

No matches. Not on the records. You can't tell me that Antoine's boys are squeaky clean, thought Tyler, so he's not involved or it's a new hire that hadn't made the records. Tyler checked the police's own prints. Still nothing. So that left Remy or… an independent agent.

Tyler wandered back toward his room, thinking about his next step. A woman's voice said, quite close to his elbow, "Gif fo' yo'lady." He growled. "Cap, y'all wanna buy a gif fo' yo' lady."

"No."

"Y'all got a lady?"

"No."

"Big strong buck like you, dat's hard ta b'leev."

Tyler frowned at her; what business was that of hers?

"You buy dis from Maum Euphrasie." She wafted a royal blue cotton scarf at him.

Tyler turned away.

"You leave Miz Lacy 'lone."

Tyler swung back. "Who's Miz Lacy?"

Maum Euphrasie laughed, a rich chuckle from a well-rounded body wearing jeans and a T-shirt with a picture of George Denegre, much washed of course. "I seen you. Antoine not be too happy, fine buck like you visitin' Miz Lacy 'thout he know."

"Is that some kind of threat?"

She turned serious. "No, but dis is. You leave Miz Lacy 'lone. She one sweet chile but she cain take no more care herself than a tree-day-ol' kitten. Antoine get de wrong idee, he kill you. What he do ta her, I don' know."

Tyler folded his arms. "Maum Euphrasie, is it?"

"Yeah you right."

"Well, Maum Euphrasie, somebody I know disappeared and the last place he was supposed to be was here in this town. Now, Big Tom Backus and Antoine and Miz Lacy all tell me he's dead. But somebody's trying to tell me I'm being lied to. I knew that, and I don't for a minute believe it's Miz Lacy doing it. So I have a choice between Antoine and Big Tom. Which one would you bet on?"

Maum Euphrasie chuckled. "Both o' dem." Then she got serious again. "You bettah know. Big Tom, he happy you get wrong wit' Antoine. Den you shoot each oder. He wants Miz Lacy. Fell in love wit' her tree year ago at Carnival. Den dem lizards arrived an' he too busy to do anyting about it. He happy you solve his problem for him.

"But you leave Miz Lacy out of it. She de one good ting at de top o' dis town."

"You took her shopping the other day."

"She had sixty dollahs in her purse, and she spend tree on a lipstick and give me de rest for other people."

After a pause, Tyler said, "Maum Euphrasie, I swear to you that I will do everything I can to keep my business from splashing on Miz Lacy."

"Dat work in de past?"

"Not always." Looking up, Tyler caught a sympathetic look on Maum Euphrasie's face. He bought the scarf for fifty bucks, most of it what he'd stolen that morning. But not all. "You take that to Miz Lacy tomorrow and tell her I'm sorry for any pain I've caused her."

Maum Euphrasie drew it through her fingers a couple of times. "Don't you be alone too long," she said seriously, and then her eyes twinkled. "Make you all mean."

Maum Euphrasie dropped by the Bourbon Street apartment. "Chere," she said to Lacy, "I got a present fo' y'all." She held out the box wrapped in silvery paper.

Lacy smiled at Antoine, who watched in curiosity. The opened box revealed a royal blue cotton scarf.

"It ain' much, but the gent gave me mo' dan de axin' price an' I gave some of it to some po' folks," Euphrasie said. "But den, he done dat mo' dan once bafore."

"He did, huh?" Antoine asked. "Somebody Lacy know, den?"

"Yeah, you right. Know him real good."

"Where dis gent meet y'all?"

"By de Catedral," Euphrasie answered. "He dere lots a times. Might t'ink he live dere." She chuckled. "Sort of."

"Ain' nobody live at de Catedral," Antoine said. " 'Cep hants."

Lacy turned a little pale. "Ain' no hants I know at de Catedral," she said quickly.

"Nemmind," Antoine said, watching her closely. "Lessee dat." He turned the scarf over, then looked into the box.

"What you lookin' fo', Antoine?" Euphrasie asked.

"No note. Ain' like a gentleman not to pack a note in a gif'."

"No note," Euphrasie affirmed. "Jus' telled me to tell Miz Lacy he sorry 'bout everting."

"You know dis gent?" Antoine asked.

"Mhm. Seen him couple-tree times. Fine man."

"What his name?"

"Dat I don' know."

Antoine relaxed slightly. The first idea to cross his mind had been that Big Tom sent the gift. But if Maum Euphrasie didn't know the man's name… "Young or old?"

"Middlin'."

"Tall or short?"

"Middlin'."

"He middlin' all over?"

Euphrasie shook her head. "Nice fella. Sharp, too."

Antoine thought a minute. "He from around hyah?"

"Nope."

"Only fella Lacy know not from around hyah…" Antoine glanced at her, trying not to let her catch him at it. Two fellas. One live, and one dead. The live one didn't know Lacy well enough to be sending her gifts, and the one who knew her that well was dead. "Sho, Maum Euphrasie, you tryin' some gris-gris on Antoine. Go 'long now."

She went but chuckled. "Ain' no gris-gris letting a man know his lady got admirers. Keep him on his toes."

The thunderstorm broke that night. It washed down the ashes of Café Dumonde and sent rivulets through the streets to the river.

Big Tom carried his jambalaya to the office. Where a leak in the ceiling had dripped onto his desk. And wetted a piece of paper.

It wasn't a newspaper or a police roster or anything like that, it was hand-written. "I know I was supposed to give the shipment back to you, but Mother Nature had different plans. Lightning and explosives are some real bad voodoo. You should have told me what I wanted to know the first time I asked."

Is this some kind of joke? he thought. He turned the note over. No signature on that side either. He turned the written side back up and then repeated that process a couple of times before it registered. "Prentiss!" he bellowed.

He and Prentiss and Duchesne tramped around the blackened clearing and the smoky skeletized live oak tree for half an hour before Big Tom got his head around it. Their flashlights picked up the bits of the chain that had held the box car door closed and secured the explosives to it. They showed the scrap metal remains of the box car itself. The contents were gone, destroyed in the explosion or washed away in the torrential rain. Five hundred thousand dollars of cocaine, street sales of ten million once it was cut. Gone in one night.

"Fuck you, Tyler," Big Tom muttered. Then he hollered it out. "Fuck you, Tyler!"

Day 6

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," said a deep quiet voice in the alley off Rue St. Louis.

"What?" asked the cook. "Who are you?"

"None of your business. But I wouldn't open that door if I were you. I'd go home and catch some more Zs."

A face loomed in the dim light of a sky still cloudy from the storm, strong and bumpy with character, with an ugly scar on the left temple near the eye. The dark eyes gleamed like hard coal. A chill ran down the cook's back. "Look, Antoine fire me I don' open now and take deliveries."

"You open that door and you won't live to care about that."

The cook looked at the alley door and drew back his left hand, then put away the keys he held in his right hand. "Ya don' say who I blame if…" Turning toward the alley, he looked both ways sharply. The stranger was gone. The cook walked gingerly toward Royal Street and then, picking up steam, headed for the Cathedral where he started saying a rosary. He heard a roar but ignored it. When he finished the rosary, he crept back to the corner of Royal and watched the flames. Dat fella look like de devil, he thought, but he sho an angel ta me.

Tyler watched Antoine leave the house with about twenty of his crew, heading for the ruins of his flagship restaurant. Then he took the topdown way of getting into the apartment. Knocking, he said quietly, "Lacy?"

It took a couple of minutes. "Who dat?"

"It's Tyler. Can we talk a minute?"

The chain rattled.

"That's better. Bad stuff going down out there, you want to be safe." Tyler said approvingly. She was wearing the scarf twisted into a sort of necklace and tied in back.

"What do you want to say?" Lacy asked, and went to her signature fainting couch.

Tyler sat near her on the sofa. "Lacy, I've been thinking about that message on my mirror and there are two possibilities, the way I see it. One is that Remy is alive, and both Big Tom and Antoine know it. They've paid the price of keeping that secret from me." To Lacy's look of horror, Tyler explained, "Nobody died. Nobody got hurt, except for one lizard. If Remy's dead, I'll know it by the end of the day, my way. You know what I have to do then, right?" Lacy shook her head mutely. "I have to make Big Tom and Antoine give up which of them did it, and then I have to do something about that." Lacy looked terrified again. "But if he's alive, then he can take care of you. The only thing is, he won't feel safe coming in as long as Big Tom and Antoine are both around. You know what that means."

Slowly Lacy took off the scarf and smoothed it on her lap. A tear fell down her perfect cheek.

Tyler wanted to wipe it away. "Until he does come in, or if I have to kill both Big Tom and Antoine, you're going to need protection. Can you use a gun?"

Lacy looked down at the scarf and stroked it and then said, "Mr. Tyler, de only time I ever use a gun, Antoine tell me it was Remy I shot. You tink he lied. I don' know. But if I pick up a gun against either Big Tom or Antoine, I'm just doing what dey've always done, de same ting dat get Remy dead." She looked up with a small smile. "I tink you're trying to save me from dem in the best way you can. But what sense dat make if you turn me into one of dem?"

Tyler smiled a little. "Told you you were smart. OK, Plan B. You get Maum Euphrasie in here. I doubt anybody will mess with her. Second," and Tyler laid the plan out so Lacy wouldn't do the wrong thing at the wrong moment and get hurt.

"Dat arrive today," Lacy told Antoine when she saw the paper he was holding in his hand.

"In de mail?"

"No, a kid carry it here."

"Why somebody send you a note when you cain' read?" The next minute Antoine could have bitten his tongue.

"Fo' me? Maybe dey don' know dat. What it say?"

"Nemmind. I'll go. Don' want you meeting with some stranger." He was exhausted and mad and what Antoine really wanted to do was find Tyler and beat the crap out of him because nobody caused this kind of hell until he showed up in New Orleans. Not even Remy, not even with his "reading lessons" for Lacy. Maybe this was a good way; how would Tyler know that Lacy couldn't read? To him, she would just be some gorgeous woman he could use to yank Antoine's chain. So the note could be from him. Antoine prepped for the night and kissed Lacy's cheek before he left. "Don' wait up fa me."

"Awrite, Antoine."

The Besthoffs had specified that their sculpture garden be open to the public, so even at night you could tour the waterfall and see the spooky sculpted people sitting on benches near the lagoon. The oaks and other giant trees cast shadows in the light of the full moon, now that the clouds had cleared. The storm had left humidity behind, even compared to the usual New Orleans heat. Antoine found himself wiping moisture from his face as he made his way to the obelisk, hugging the hedges.

Big Tom came through the hedges surrounding the sculpture garden on the side facing Alferez Drive. The note said Lacy wanted to see him, that Maum Euphrasie told her what happened and she wanted to stop things before they got worse. Musta been Maum Euphrasie who wrote it 'cause he knew Lacy couldn't write. The obelisk had obviously caught her eye; it was the newest piece in the sculpture garden, pre-lizard and all. A cloud went across the full moon and then Big Tom flattened against the trunk of an oak. Antoine. Damn. What did that mean?

A second note. Big Tom wanted to laugh. Had to be that devil Tyler. He thinks he'll get us to shoot each other. But it won't find Remy O'Brien for him.

Antoine reached the obelisk and looked around the best he could. Let's see, I was tied up with the restaurant and Lacy got somebody else to read her the note. But she left it behind and I read it when I got back and I think she thinks she's meeting Remy for real, so I come here to break it up. That's the way I'll play this. If it is Remy, he won't kill me right away, he'll make me tell the truth so Lacy can hear it first. So, "Lacy," Antoine called.

Big Tom heard the shot and saw Antoine fall and for a moment, he looked at the barrel of his own weapon to make sure it wasn't leaking smoke. Then he smiled. Tyler had just made a big mistake. He could tell Lacy for a fact that it wasn't him who killed Antoine, and he could show her the gun with its full magazine. He walked toward the obelisk and then somebody stepped out of the shadows. Big Tom hesitated, and then realized who it was.

Lacy stood there with her arms stretched out toward him, but not for a hug like he had dreamed so often. Her hands were clasped together and something protruded from them. A gun barrel. Goddam. "Lacy, put that gun down," he said quietly. The second shot, he never heard.

Lacy half-collapsed. Tyler had promised not to shoot and he hadn't put any bullets in her gun. Somebody else was out here. It had to be Remy. She started to call his name but that wasn't in the script that Tyler had given her and made her repeat word for word after him. She started to tremble and tears rushed to her eyes.

Tyler came out from behind his tree and put an arm around her. "You did just great, baby."

"I d-d-d-idn't shoot him," Lacy quavered, head on that broad shoulder. "I d-d-didn't…"

"I know that. But you did great anyway." He raised his voice. "You can come in now, Remy." A man came out of the dark. "Who are you?" Tyler called.

"Remy."

"No, you aren't."

"Jules?" Lacy said.

"Yeah, chere."

"What are you doing here?"

He walked over to them, slender and agile as a cat. "Long story, chere. But it ends, 'and they lived happily ever after, loved each other and were glad that the two villains had died.' "

"Then I did kill Remy," Lacy said in a horrified whisper.

"No, chere. Dat guy you din't see too good, dat wan't Remy. He wan't anybody. Antoine jus' want you to tink it Remy an' he not de hero he make you tink." Jules stroked her cheek.

"Then where's Remy?" Lacy's voice bled anguish.

"He know, don'cha?" Jules said to Tyler.

Lacy pushed away from Tyler. "Where is he?" she wailed.

Tyler laid Jules out with a hammer blow of one powerful fist with all his weight behind it. "You say you love her. But you left her in that snake pit, thinking she killed a man she was falling in love with. And then you set things up to suit yourself. A lizard couldn't have done better." In the rising dawn, he realized that the liquid flowing from Jules' upper lip wasn't red. It was green. He blew the lizard's head off.

"Where is Remy?" Lacy demanded through tears.

"Come on, sit down. I told you I'd find out by the end of the day where Remy was. I went back to the cathedral and opened up that mausoleum you showed me. Then I had a couple guys lift the casket. Remy's body was under it. The bottom of the casket had a collar that fit over him."

Lacy broke down and wept until she was dry of tears. Tyler told her the rest of the story. "Remy was supposed to get this city evacuated. I think it partly worked and some of them went through an Alabama town I was in a few weeks back. I guess Big Tom didn't want to lose his customers."

"How you know it was Big Tom?"

"Police issue bullet in Remy's head."

"How you know? Ugh, ne'mmind." But Lacy held it together, and then she said, "What we gon' do now?"

"Well, you can evacuate like Remy wanted. All things considered, I think the WLF would want me to pick up where he left off."

"How long that take?"

Tyler grunted. "Quite a while."

"What people do until den?"

Tyler turned and looked at her, then grinned. "Maum Euphrasie told me you were always looking out for people. All right, here's what you do. You check around, I'm sure you'll find out that a lot of folks in this town thinks nobody could run it better than you. I know," Tyler said as Lacy started to protest. "You think that because you can't read, you can't do that. But remember, we agreed that not being able to read doesn't make you dumb. I'd like to shoot the guy who made you think so."

Lacy smiled slightly. "Jules just did."

"Good. Now you can learn to read, even if you're starting kind of late. But you can't learn things like compassion and courage, and you've got those. So get Maum Euphrasie to come live with you and teach you to read and help you run what's left of this town while I work on getting people out. When you think there aren't enough people left to worry about, you get yourself out. You'll find somewhere to make a new start."

Two things kept Tyler from leaving New Orleans as soon as he wanted. One was that Lacy wanted Remy to have his own grave. That meant opening Justin Berceau's mausoleum for the third time in a month, putting up a new ossuary, and finding somebody who could carve a memorial for it. This time Tyler had somebody else do the spadework, while Lacy and Maum Euphrasie organized one fine funeral.

The other was that, for some reason, once they found out they were supposed to evacuate, people decided to rip up things to carry off with them when they left. Once Tyler had shot enough of the looters and vandals that died down.

By then Lacy could already read short words.

He stopped by the Bourbon Street apartment and got caught in a small hurricane of little kids cleaning up the street and making hills out of the trash. Then he went through the guardless ground floor doors and up the stairs. When he knocked, Maum Euphrasie called, "Who dat?"

"Tyler." Once he got inside he wasn't sure how to start.

Maum Euphrasie gave him a sharp look. "You leavin' now, right?"

"I'm leaving. There are some things I have to take care of in LA."

Lacy kissed his cheek. "I'd say it been fun, but you know better dan dat."

Tyler laughed shortly. "Yeah you right. You be OK now, though. And if you aren't, you can always come find me. Listen for the explosion and look for the cloud of smoke."

"You fine dat woman now," ordered Maum Euphrasie.

"What woman?"

"De one I was talking about. De one you shouldn' be widout."

But when he got to LA, Julie had disappeared and the only thing he could do was help Mike Donovan pick up the pieces. For that, you'll have to read V – It's All Relative.

25


End file.
